The Politics of Desire

You can't always get what you want

If you’re familiar with Arktos Publishing, you’ve probably heard of Constantin von Hoffmeister. If not, you may have heard him on our podcast. Ahnaf and I were surprised to hear that he was no longer associated with Arktos. We were especially surprised, and frankly amused, to see that the Grand High Poobahs of Arktos were offended by Constantin’s repeated assertions that we are moving toward a multipolar world rather than one centered on Europe and America.

You may be confused by this. I certainly was. Could the West win a war against Russia or China? If you answer is no, and it should be, then you have three poles: America, Russia, and China. And if you think I’m discounting Europe, I am. Today’s European militaries have no ability to project force outside their borders and very little to project force within them.

The folks at Arktos, like many ethno-nationalists, appear to be acting upon the politics of desire. They have a great love for the World As It Used to Be, they fear its demise, and they believe they can save the day if only they believe strongly enough in the righteousness of their cause. In that they are very like the techno-optimists Ahnaf and I mock on our podcasts. They think we can Make Europa White Again by force of will the same way techno-optimists believe we can think our way out of an economic and resource decline.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, America became the world’s sole superpower. Neither China or Russia had the force projection capabilities of the United States. And so for a few decades grey bureaucrats plotted a world united by free trade and backed by the power of the American military. This is the closest we have ever come to a unipolar world government. And given its example, why on earth would anybody want unipolarity?

Multipolarity has always been the default setting. Kingdoms live next door to each other. Because war is expensive, bloody, and uncertain they try whenever possible to avoid conflict with each other. Expansionist regimes may try to extend their holdings, but even they know there’s a limit to their grasp and catastrophic consequences if they overreach. Multipolarity may result in multiple countries in an ongoing cold war with each other. It still beats the hell out of ongoing hot wars.

But of course that’s not why the Arktos people are upset with Constantin. They’re annoyed because Constantin believes we’re going to have a sizable permanent Muslim community within Europe. To them a permanent European Muslim community means an inevitable fall to sharia law and public stoning. They’ve spent so much time scaring themselves about war that they can’t even imagine peaceful solutions. Or, more precisely, they reject those solutions as pipe dreams from collaborators.

To get a clearer view of what’s really going on, let’s take a look at the roots of the current refugee crisis.

After World War I, immigrants from the French colonies took jobs that dead or disabled ex-soldiers could no longer fill. In the aftermath of World War II France enjoyed a 1946-75 economic boom they memorialize as Trente Glorieuses (thirty glorious years). Many immigrants came from northern Africa to help with rebuilding and later to work in bustling factories. But while France profited from immigrant labor and colonial wealth, it found itself facing another war against anti-colonialism.

In 1954 France lost its colony in French Indochina. That same year, war broke out in Algeria. In 17 October 1961 French police killed between thirty and 200 Algerians protesting in Paris. A year later Algeria was free. The pied-noirs, ethnic French who had been living in Algeria for generations, received asylum in France. The harki, Algerians who had worked with the French military, were denied permits. Around 90,000 were relocated to France with the help of sympathetic officers who ignored the rules. Thousands of those who stayed behind were murdered as traitors. Many of today’s Algerian French are descended from those refugees.

From 1955 to 1973 West Germany met its labor shortage with gastarbeiters (guest workers). Drawn largely from Turkey, these foreign workers helped keep the German economic machine running smoothly. But while they were supposed to be “guests,” many set down roots in Deutschland. Neither the gastarbeiters nor their children had German citizenship and they were largely isolated in ethnic enclaves.

East Germany had immigrants from “brother states” like Vietnam, Mozambique, and Poland. When the Berlin Wall fell, East German immigrants lost their residential permits. Many returned to their home countries. Some moved west alongside ethnic Germans fleeing their collapsing state. While ethnic Germans could claim citizenship, the former East German guest workers joined their West German comrades in limbo.

In 1948 the UK opened its borders to any resident of the British Commonwealth. Soon thereafter the HMT Empire Windrush arrived carrying over 500 Caribbeans. Thus began the “Windrush Generation.” In 1962 the British government began requiring visas pegged to labour requirements and in 1971 the border restrictions went back into effect. In October 2012 the UK Home Office announced a “Hostile Environment” policy to encourage migrants to leave. Thousands of Windrush-era migrants who had lived in the UK for decades were deported, detained, or refused return rights to Britain after visiting relatives back home.

One could argue that none of those migrants should have ever been allowed into Europe. Many people have done just that. But they were, and many of them put down roots and raised families on European soil. And they’re hardly Europe’s first immigrants to run into controversy. Remember those Angles and Saxons who came sailing into Britannia over a thousand years earlier? They were also welcomed by a king who thought they would prove useful in helping him establish a kingdom.

Am I justifying rising immigrant populations in the West? I’m not foolish enough to think that my justifications or criticisms are going to make any difference. We can sit here all day and argue about whether not mass migration or mass deportations are immoral. But until we understand the issues at hand we cannot deal with the most important question: what do we intend to do about it?

Many have speculated on the reasons why the European bureaucracy has gone whole-hog on unrestricted immigration. Often those speculations involve smoke-filled rooms filled with people with large noses and small hats. While conspiracy theories can be entertaining, more often than not they are needlessly complicated.

The West has reached a stage where we take pride in being “civilized.” Gunning down unarmed hungry hordes, sinking boats as they come to our shores — those are the acts of barbarians and savages. We’re much too humane for such brutality. Sure, social media is full of people describing their immigrant cleanup plans in graphic detail. Few if any have the stomach to go through with their fap fantasies.

We’re also facing a demographic winter. Birth control pills and abortion on demand freed us from the “tyranny of procreation” and kick-started a Sexual Revolution. But they also led to a precipitous decline in Western birth rates. Postwar Europe imported producers who could rebuild a wrecked landscape. The Modern West is desperately seeking consumers who can buy things.

Even if we had the will to shoot illegal migrants en masse, we don’t have the manpower to carry it out. America has more guns than Europe, but we’ve also got two very long borders and a whole lot of coastline. Our business sector has also developed a pretty serious cheap migrant labor habit. And for all the “Deport ‘em All” talk, our politicians have shown little interest in punishing businesses and farms that depend on undocumented labor.

Why are they coming down harder on natives than immigrants? It’s not part of a conspiracy so much as a desperate attempt to preserve order. If you can’t deport your foreign population en masse, it’s in your best interests to keep them pacified. But it’s also important to keep your native population pacified lest you wind up losing your office or your head. Giving the foreigners carrots and keeping the natives in line with sticks is, for now, more cost-effective. It’s not clear what happens when (not if) economic decline leads to increased social unrest among all classes.

It’s not surprising that we’re seeing increased political repression throughout the West. Dying governments try desperately to hold onto power as it slips away. Their plans make no rational sense because they’re acting out of terror, not reason. The same holds true for their subjects. When everything is teetering on a precipice, people look for solutions and scapegoats. Immigrants serve both purposes.

You may be thinking this situation sounds hopeless. It depends on what you’re hoping for. If you’re hoping that America is going to reclaim its place as sole superpower, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed. If you’ve rested all your chips on “White Race Conquers the World,” you might want to rethink that bet. But if you simply want a world where you and your loved ones can find a safe home, that’s not hopeless at all. It just requires reframing your worldview a bit.

In 1735 Swedish naturalist Carl Linneaus drew up these four subspecies of H. sapiens:

American.—H, Americanus.
Of copper coloured complexion, choleric constitution, and remarkably erect.
Their hair is black, lank, and coarse; their nostrils are wide; their features harsh, and the chin is scantily supplied with beard. Are obstinate in their tempers, free, and satisfied with their condition ; and are regulated in all their proceedings by traditional customs.—Paint their skin with red streaks.

European.— H, Europaeus.
Of fair complexion, sanguine temperament, and brawny form.
The hair is flowing, and of various shades of brown; the eyes are mostly blue.—Of gentle manners, acute in judgment, of quick invention, and governed by fixed laws.—Dress in close vestments,

Asiatic.—H. Asiatici.
Of footy complexion, melancholic temperament, and rigid fibre.
The hair is strong, black, and lank; the eyes dark brown.—Of grave, haughty, and covetous manners. Governed by opinions.—Dress in loose garments.

African—H. Afri.
Of black complexion, phlegmatic temperament, and relaxed fibre.
The hair is black and frizly; the skin soft and silky; the nose is flat; the lips thick; and the female has a natural apron*, and long lax breasts.—Of crafty, indolent, and careless dispositions, and are governed in their actions by caprice.—Anoint the skin with grease.

* This circumstance is rather doubtful.

We find scattered comments talking about the “whiteness” of Europeans well before that. Medieval Europeans knew what “Ethiopians” and “Moors” were well before that. Those who lived near a port might even have heard third-hand stories from sailors about “Chinamen.” But Linnaeus was the first to officially declare Europeans members of the White race.

Even identities like “Frenchman” and “ethnic German” are more recent than you might suppose. For most of history French residents identified as Bretons, Normans, Occitans, Provençals, Gascons, or other ethnic subgroups. Germany was filled with Bavarians, Saxons, Prussians, etc. And there are still Scots who insist that a Scot who identifies as British is no true Scotsman.

Many Reddit midwits (but I repeat myself) will insist that this is proof that words like “French” or “German” have no actual meaning. This is nonsense: those words have a perfectly clear and defined meaning. But that meaning is rooted in a time period. In the time before “race” was an identity, your family lineage and your religion were much stronger identifiers than your membership in a nation-state.

The idea of ethnic nation-states, incidentally, originates less than a century before “races,” in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Before that we were subjects to a king and a delineated hierarchy of nobles. The nobility were expected to live up to certain moral expectations, but they had a very different culture than the common folk and often didn’t even speak the same language. They certainly weren’t expected to have any ethnic identity with the commoners and would be quite insulted by anyone who claimed they did.

In the medieval period Réne Guénon would have become a “Turk” once people found out he had accepted Islam. Today a “Turk” is somebody who has Turkish ethnicity. That ethnicity incorporates a wide range of Hittite, Seljuk, and other ethnicities. The Turkish government even insists that its Kurdish citizens are “Mountain Turks,” though most Kurds would loudly and profanely reject that identity.

For Linnaeus Europe was the home of the White race. European Union advocates think Europe is a shared culture. The folks at Arktos think it has more to do with bloodlines. But there has never been a sense of shared ancestry or culture amongst the people living on Eurasia’s westernmost peninsula. Most of European history consists of Europeans fighting with other Europeans over territory. The Yellow, Red, and Black races have all done their share of intra-racial squabbling as well.

Neither geography nor genetics seem to have done much to produce any kind of affinity. In fact, the most common way ethnic and cultural identities are formed is being in close proximity to a competing ethnicity or culture. We separate ourselves in times of tension; when those tensions ease, we come together as neighbors. We don’t forget our differences, but neither do we dwell on them.

Ethnic identities weren’t carved in stone alongside the Ten Commandments by a jealous god. They form out of the intermingling of cultures. Often they vanish when those cultures fall and are transformed into new ethnicities. Under the Spanish we saw the birth of Criollos, Castizos, Mestizos, Negros, and Indios. The process was not bloodless, certainly. There was a good bit of oppression involved and there are still hard feelings between these different groups. But there’s also a great deal of coexistence, commingling, and cooperation.

Both Europe and America are governed by incompetents who are desperately trying to hold onto relevance by force. I do not expect their governments to survive the impending financial downturn in their current form. Many immigrants will return home or move on to more promising grounds. Some who have put down roots will stay and weather the storm. There will still be tensions, and sometimes those tensions may break out into sporadic violence. But under more localized governments we’ll see less of the willfully stupid provocations that have exacerbated bad sentiments between us. Few, native or foreign, want to win a war where they rule over ashes.

Will White people be wiped out? I expect 500 years from now we’ll still see people whom a time traveler from 2025 would recognize as White. As oil becomes more expensive and trade routes more treacherous, we’re going to see less mobility between geographic locations and more families staying in the same place for generations.

After Saint-Domingue became Haiti, slaves from different African tribes became negs and milats (Blacks and Mulattos). We will see similar distinctions arise in our new society. They will bear little resemblance to the way we sort out ethnicities and skin colors, but they will be underpinned by an equal mixture of observation, anecdote, and emotion. Some will rail against them and some will swear by them. And in time they will fall and new ethnicities will rise in their stead.